Mrs James Potter
by ElMangoTango
Summary: Love was easier than she cared to admit. Falling was simple, too. It was admitting it to herself that she couldn't handle. It was the knowledge that no matter what, she wanted to be Mrs James Potter just as much as that stupid boy did. Marauder Era.
1. Introduction

_M R S J A M E S P O T T E R_

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_Segment from an old newspaper found in one of the thousands of crevices inside the Hogwarts Library when Madame Pince had a really good clean out during the summer holidays of 1965._

Daily Prophet - 2/2/1924

Death Notices

RIP: L. R. Swill

13/2/1913 - 4/8/1924

Died after a Potions Exam was mingled with.

A Rainbow Will Always Show After the Rain.

Loved dearly.

In Loving Memory of A. S. Remington-Pipe

18/8/1890 – 6/8/1924

A Prank that wasn't meant to harm caused a fatal conclusion.

She will be remembered.

Missed forever.

Tom Marvolo Riddle

30/10/1920 – 1/2/1924

Spanish Plague.

From no family to a wonderful orphanage.

Not Forgotten.

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**A.N: Thanks to Paloma Latina for offering any one of your old stories to me. I chose to continue this one because it had only been given a prologue and I really want you to continue the others :P. **

**Just letting you know, everything is canon, except that, as you may have noticed, Voldy is well dead and therefore all the damage he caused is no longer in existence. So perhaps it is really AU.**

**Read? Review!**

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	2. Hanna the Horrible

Her green eyes were trained on the charms textbook in front of her. They zipped along the lines as easily as a boat along water. The words drifted clearly in front of her face, but still she took none of it in. Lily supposed it was because she hadn't slept well last night, but she had a sneaking suspicion her focus was lost due to the shirtless body she could see out the corner of her eye.

Her gaze slowly moved in his direction. He was doing push-ups again. It was part of some routine he had been following for the past few weeks. Wake up, walk into the Gryffindor Common Room, stretch a little, work out then go back to his room again. She wasn't sure why he did it. Perhaps some stupid Quiddich training he'd added to the already elite fitness programme he had designed for the Gryffindor Team.

Lily, of course, found it very irritating while she was catching up on some reading. He was almost abusing his Head Boy powers, getting away with using a communal area as a gym – and in front of the Head Girl, no less! He was clearly toeing the line but Lily couldn't punish him, no matter what she threatened him with. He was well within his right, according to Dumbledore.

When she complained to her friends about him, they only pointed out that she _was_ always sitting there, without fail, every morning and therefore she mustn't mind it _that much_. She ignored them. It was perfectly reasonable for her to be awake bright and early to start the day in the common room with a book. As it just so happened, the Gryffindor Quiddich Captain had the same sort of idea.

Lily shuffled in her desk chair and tried to ignore the heavy breathing coming from the corner as he began the first in a long line of impossibly fast and clean sit-ups. Her eyes drifted to him again, despite her best efforts to keep them on her textbook. He was very attractive, she'd give him that. He was a nice brown all over, despite it being the end of winter. It seemed he never paled like most.

She wondered how he kept warm in the freezing winter conditions. The way he managed to keep up the same absurd tempo with every different exercise made her think he was definitely on something. He stood up quickly and Lily threw her head into her book so as to not get caught looking. She was paralysed with the worry as he walked passed her on the way to his room.

"Hey, Lils," his deep voice rumbled.

She looked up quickly in time to see him run a hand through his black hair. "Oh. Hey, James," she said, and then as if she had actually been reading, returned enthusiastically to her book.

She cursed at herself as he made his exit. Lily hated the way his name sounded in her throat. She hated that it was half boredom and half a mildly sarcastic joy that could be heard when she spoke to him. She wished that she could act like herself in front of him, but she knew she couldn't – not really.

Over that holidays James Potter had changed. Or rather, he hadn't but _she_ did. Lily used to hate him with such a passion that it kept her up at night. He made her sick, the way he treated others. She told him this frequently all through fifth and sixth year. It wasn't until the end of the summer that she had begun to realise what she called him hurt James as much as Snape's empty taunts got to her. Lily made a conscious decision to stop – but she needn't worry. She hadn't seen him be mean all year.

Something had clicked when she turned seventeen. She realised she had spent so much of her energy and effort against him that she hadn't considered actually getting to know him. So Lily had spent most of her autumn patrols chatting idly and actually listening – slowly but surely beginning to see James for the person he was, not the one she had so readily shut down.

And now she was at a dilemma. It seemed James was so used to the way she treated him that he had begun to both accept and expect it. She was so comfortable with the old her that she was scared to treat him different – scared that he'd know she'd forgiven him for everything he had ever done to annoy him and that he might take it the wrong way.

Lily found her feelings all very confusing, but two things were straight: she wanted to put the past behind them... and damn he looked good.

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Lily ate lunch by herself that day, choosing to sit in the Great Hall rather than venture out into the cold courtyard with her friends. She was attempting to braid her own hair and read up on the history of gillyweed at the same time when Remus Lupin stumbled over and collapsed into the seat beside her. She turned to stare at him expectantly.

"Lils, I need your help!" he breathed heavily. "It's Hanna. I can't get rid of her. She won't stay off me." Remus' chest was rising and falling as if he had just run a fairly long way. His hair was tussled about his face and his cheeks were red. A smudge of pink lip gloss was on his collar.

"Why don't you get Sirius or James to help you out?" Lily spoke through the bobby pin between her teeth as she looped her hair around itself. "I'm sure they'd gladly give it a shot."

Remus smiled good-naturedly and sat forward, reaching for the jug of water on the other side of the table. "I know that, I just think it is a delicate case, best to be handled by a female rather than two possibly crazed males."

Lily finished with her hair and turned on the bench to face him properly. "Well, ok. Tell me about it."

Remus and Lily had been friends for a long while. They both had a love of books, and they both wanted to do well at school. She counted him as a best friend, and was sure he felt the same way. He had pulled her though her family troubles and she had kept him above water when his lycanthropy got too much. Lily wasn't really sure what she would do without him around.

"She's obsessed," he panted, "I can't actually get her off me and when I manage it, she's too busy complaining about herself to notice I exist."

Lily chuckled. "I didn't know that about her."

Remus nodded. "Neither. I dunno. Women. They change their minds all the time."

"Amen to that!" came a loud laugh of agreement from in front of them. They both looked over as Sirius Black gracefully slid onto the bench and begun to serve himself some lunch.

Remus' eyes narrowed. "Have you not eaten already?"

Sirius ripped through a leg of chicken he had just plucked from the dish. "So what?" he asked around a mouthful. "I'm an active boy who needs all the energy he can get."

Remus groaned in distaste. "Swallow before you talk, you pig." Sirius threw him a half-hearted glare. "As I was saying," he turned back to Lily, "I need your help."

Lily thought as quickly as she could in the brief minute it took him to catch his breath and pile his lunch up on his plate. She wasn't surprised at the amount of food he ate anymore. They all ate twice as much as she did, and more. It was bizarre and frustrating and eventually she'd gotten used to it.

"Well, have you tried talking to her?"

Remus gestured at himself with a look of horror that made Lily struggle to suppress a giggle. "I try and I get jumped. One second she was sitting there, all normal, and the next she's on me and I couldn't figure out how to get her off."

"Dump her."

Remus and Lily looked at Sirius in disbelief. "What?" Lily grunted, angry at his interruption.

"Dump her," he repeated slowly, leaning back in his seat pensively.

Remus' eyebrows knotted together. "On what grounds?"

Sirius shrugged. "Moved on? Lost the spark? Need to concentrate on school? Turn into a furry maniac every four weeks and-?"

"Ok, enough!" Remus interjected violently. He looked around to make sure nobody had heard what Sirius had said. "Keep it to yourself this time," he hissed.

Trying hard not to look guilty or ashamed, Sirius bent down to move things around in his bag. Lily watched as Remus eventually drew his glare away from the dark boy in front of them and settled them on her instead. He looked upset and tired, and she remembered with a guilty feeling that a full moon was only days away.

"Sorry," Remus muttered. Lily didn't say anything – she wasn't sure what to say, and she didn't think anything could help anyway. Instead, she simply placed her hand in his. He smiled his thanks. "But, seriously, what am I going to do about this whole situation?"

Lily opened her mouth to give him her well thought out advice, but a loud shriek came from behind them before any words could come out. They snapped their heads around and took in the girl standing before the table. It was Hanna, her face as red as the disgusting bow in her hair. Lily thought she was really quite ugly when she was angry.

"Remus," she hissed. "Please explain."

"Um," he swallowed, "explain what exactly?" Hanna gestured wildly at Lily's hand and her bow wobbled madly in time with her head. Lily had to suppress a laugh. Remus frowned at his girlfriend and didn't move. "Lily is my friend. Are you going to deny me my friends the same way you denied me hanging out in the library?"

Hanna looked ready to cry. Lily could almost see Sirius mentally hi-fiving his friend. Remus clenched his arm with guilt about speaking out and making her upset. Hanna crossed her arms angrily and opened her mouth a few times, a bit like a fish. She was still pretty, in a way, even though she was evidently uncomfortable.

"Well," she said in a volume barely above a whisper. "I see how it is. Remus, it's over." Hanna turned on her heel and fled from the room. Two girls from the Hufflepuff Table jumped up and followed her. Sirius began to laugh and Lily couldn't hold back hers any longer. Remus frowned at his plate.

Lily tried to redeem herself. "I'm sorry," she giggled. "But you have to admit, that was completely out of the blue. We hug all the time and she doesn't have a problem with it."

"She's got issues, man," Sirius agreed. "And your problem is all solved now."

Remus looked decidedly grey. Lily threw her arm over his shoulder and tried to cheer him up, but she was still a bit hysterical and when she met the glinting silver eyes of Sirius over the table, they both burst into another fit of laughter.

"Well, I'm glad you think that was funny. She'll probably send me hate mail for a month."

Lily and Sirius sobered up, but they knew he wasn't really angry, just disappointed the breakup happened the way it did. Eventually he smiled to himself and Lily felt it was okay to drop her arm. "I must say, that was really quite convenient timing," he chuckled happily.

"What was convenient?"

Lily's heart thumped as James joined Sirius on the bench across from her. She ignored the jumpy feeling as they briefly made eye contact before Lily quickly looked back down at her textbook. Her face grew hot and she refused to look up again until she was sure he had stopped looking at her.

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